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Recess is Cancelled
"Recess Is Cancelled"[1] is the seventh episode of the fourth season of Recess, which was first broadcast on September 22nd, 1999. Plot 'Summary' The Government officially cancels recess as part of an experiment, but things go wrong when the kids become slow-minded and depressed as a result. 'Main Story' The Government uses Third Street School as a pilot school to test out the effect of cancelling recess on improving test scores. Both the kids and teachers are understandably frustrated by this; even Miss Finster is upset as she has to be sitting in Miss Lemon's office moping for the remainder of the schedule. They are even confused when government agents Barnes and Noble begin handing out standardized tests. These agents assert their authority quickly, by having a word with Miss Grotke when she tries to play paper football with the kids, and later sealing the staff bathroom door shut due to overuse. Over time, the kids become demoralized, mindlessly going through each day. To make matters worse, the program ends up having the opposite effect of what was expected - test scores plummet to their lowest ever. In interviews with the kids, it is shown that the kids desire time in the day to go outside and have fun. The Secretary of Schools then develops an alternative program for Third Street. He calls it "Reversing Effects of Continuous Educational Stress Syndrome" or "RECESS" (pronounced "wreck-is"). Introducing it to the school immediately raises the spirits of the children, bringing them back to normal, and bringing the test scores back up, much to both the students and teachers' delight. Goofs *'Animation/continuity error:' When Vince hands his test back to Agent Noble, it's already graded, when it shouldn't have been. *'Coloring error:' When Vince tells T.J. that he has to have a plan, his entire arm is colored gray. *'Consistency error: 'The kindergartners' playground is missing from the side of the school in a few shots. Trivia *The events of this episode later on lead-up to the events in Recess: School's Out. **Interesting enough, Recess was canceled at Third Street School by the Secretary of Education. **Also, Prickly and Muriel's reactions of recess being canceled were similar to the movie. **In addition, you'd have to take this episode separately from any continuity in Recess (to say nothing of the film, Recess: School's Out) to enjoy it in its own right because there is no logical way it could have happened.﻿ *This is one of the very few times where God is mentioned on a Disney television series (with Gus' line, "Was that...God?"). The other show where God was mentioned was in 101 Dalmatians: The Series. *The use of not saturated color when recess is cancelled is meant to represent the loss of hope in the children via color language. Once "RECESS" is instigated, the color quickly re-saturates to represent their return to normal. *This is the first episode to use digital ink-and-paint animation instead of traditional animation. *This is the only episode with animation from Anivision. Cultural Allusions *Agents Barnes & Noble appear to be based on Agents Mulder and Scully from the X-Files series. **Their names are also an allusion to the Barnes & Noble company. **They are also based on Agent K and Agent L from the Men in Black series in personality (Barnes for Agent K) and appearance (Noble for Agent L); coincidentally, Agent Barnes' voice actor Gregg Berger was known to voice Agent K in Men in Black: The Series. References #↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0905390/ Category:Season 4 Category:Episodes